MasterCard pledges support to SEWA's Self-Reliant Women's Program

MasterCard Worldwide today, as a part of its commitment to economic empowerment for individuals, pledged US $50,000 to the Self Employed Women's Association (SEWA), an organization that helps women in India secure employment opportunities, empowering them to self-reliance with supportive services.

The financial aid will help fund the set-up of SEWA's 7th Rural Urban Development Initiative (RUDI) Processing Centre at Bodeli, Gujarat. The proposed centre will benefit approximately 2000 farmers and 400 SEWA members.

The initiative supports and executes employment and entrepreneurship programs for women in the region, and provides access to sustainable livelihood. It helps ensure fair prices to the farmers for their produce and safeguards their interests from unscrupulous middlemen. Farmers could sell their agricultural produce to the processing centre and collect money for their goods immediately. The center will process the agricultural produce for cleaning, packaging, branding and coding. With this initiative, farmers could generate additional income of approximately 20% more than what they used to earn.

As more women are trained to run the center, they will become entrepreneurs, retailing in the neighboring areas, thereby sustaining the business activities of the center. SEWA members are treated as entrepreneurs and would participate as shareholders in the trust. There will be at least 125 SEWA members working for the centre permanently.

The centre aims to generate funds and circulate it within the SEWA network, which will enhance the quality, capacity and efficiency of rural production. The RUDI centre initiative was piloted by SEWA in the Sabarkantha district of Gujarat. SEWA leverages its large-scale membership for nurturing local skilled businesswomen along the rural production value chain.